Sigmund Freud’s Sortie To America

The Father of Psychoanalysis came, saw, conquered—and didn’t like it much

His reasons, the trivial ones, were what he regarded as unpalatable food and the tempo of Manhattan. Later, though Freud never returned to the United States, his dislike for the country became almost an obsession. Jung’s success here, after the two had become bitter enemies, was one factor. The 1919 Peace Conference, at which Freud blamed Wood- row Wilson for the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Freud’s beloved Austrian Tyrol, was a far more serious one.

But in 1909 his feelings were those of any homesick traveler. In his letter to Mathilde, commenting that he wouldn’t be sorry to be back, he added four words in English: “East, West; Home Best.”